


All the Things I Could Have

by sadbabyosborn (arka_r)



Series: Baby I'm Your Nucleus [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Heartbreak, M/M, Tony Has Trust Issues, childhood crush, teenage sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 12:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1226212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arka_r/pseuds/sadbabyosborn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony reflects back into his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Things I Could Have

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to write 5+1 fic but i kinda forgot mid-way.
> 
> PSA: And We Might As Well Burn Like Stars is under major grammar construction so i deleted it, in case anyone is looking for it. in the mean time, please enjoy oneshots written for this universe :3

The first time he did relationship, Tony was ten. Howard introduced him to a girl, a daughter of his business friend or something. Her name was Amy and she had the most brilliant blue eyes and equally brilliant smile. She carried herself like a princess, and Tony fell for her.

No, they didn’t do anything too spectacular, considering at the time Tony was still under the ridiculous influence of his peers that touching a girl would give him cooties. Hell, Tony wasn’t even brave enough to hold her hand, fearing that he would make her pregnant. Tony took her to this nice café near her house for an ice cream or two after school because he thought it was what boyfriends do. He also opened doors for her because he thought it was what boyfriends do.

It was probably the most innocent relationship he ever had.

Of course, like any other crushes, it didn’t last longer than a week. By Sunday, Amy was driving him up the wall with her endless prattling of what he should do or not do. Her forbidding him getting all dirty with grease was the last straw. At Monday, he stuck a gum on her seat and she went home crying because Tony ‘broke’ her favorite dress.

At thirteen, Tony found sex. He lost his virginity to a girl at cheerleader club whose name was already forgotten the first minute into their sex. It was clumsy as hell and Tony forgot protection. Luckily, he didn’t knock her up. Right after that, he always brought a condom or ten in his backpack in case of sex. He might also learn a trick or ten in sex on the following years.

The second time he did romantic relationship, Tony was fifteen and probably the youngest to ever sit on MIT classes. There was this girl who could do calculus mentally and recite fifty pi numbers. Tony, ever loving the brain, fell for her. Hard.

Getting into her panties was never his main objective. He enjoyed spending time with her, basically being all nerdy and doing nerd stuffs. He even did the mushy stuffs like slipping post-its into her bag written with ‘our love will be like sodium in water: brief, explosive, and hot’ or stuffs like that. It was _that_ cheesy, really. So when he did get into her panties, it was like opening a present. Their sex was intimate and Tony took a special care to please her. It was the first time he enjoyed spending the afterglow with another. It was the first time Tony believed about one true love.

It ended right at the morning after, when he found out the girl retelling their love adventure on a phone. She confessed after a bout of interrogation that she was talking to her reporter friend. Tony never stormed out from someone’s life so fast. She was lucky that it was only by principle he didn’t punch her face.

It was one of the reasons he avoided commitment like a plague. Slowly but steadily he began to find out that people around him were interested in him only for his money or his fame. His father cared not a lick about him and his mother had found comfort in the arms of alcohol. Obie took interest in him simply because he had shown interest in applying at Stark Industries R&D Science Department, specifically in weapon manufacturing division. No one wanted to listen him prattling about theoretical physics after technically twelve-hours of Star Trek movies marathon, or cooing over his AI baby DUM-E, or basically being at his side as he did the groundwork of Jarvis’ prototype. No one wanted to cuddle him greasy and sweaty after the shop job. No one wanted to know whether he drooled or not in his sleep, whether he liked soy sauce or ketchup for his eggs (the answer might varied depending on his mood), whether he preferred the left side or the right side of the bed. All they knew was Tony Stark, the child prodigal who entered and graduated MIT early, the shining celebrity on the spotlight in his shiny Armani suits.

Sure he engaged sex with multiple partners, or multiple partners simultaneously. Sex he enjoyed, sex he was great at. But whenever he was faced with the signs of commitment, he ran. Fast. It was then he got his reputation as the lady man, the most eligible bachelor, the sex god, etc.  He didn’t need to seduce girls with lame chemistry pickup lines because they were already throwing themselves into his arms. They lined up for a chance to suck his cock. They didn’t even care with commitment; one night with the Stark genius was already a prize enough.

Except at twenty, he met Pepper.

Okay so maybe he did quite a lot of dumb things like forgetting names of important people, skipping board meetings, or found out having office sex with his secretary(-ies). But he believed that no one would blame him because he was the Great Tony Stark. Until Pepper did; she walked into his office after one disaster where Tony accidentally forgot attending an important meeting, causing heavy financial damage to Stark Industries from that alone. When he tried to reroute her anger by making obscene jokes relating to her gender (and he might/might not say something derogatory relating to her gender), she slapped him with the briefcase she was carrying with her and retaliated with cold-blooded and well-placed insults.

He didn’t sue her for assaulting him and she went away practically with a slap on her wrist. But he knew already not to mess with her. Two years later, she became his PA. Tony was outright terrified.

He might or might not try to get into her pants, which she deflected smoothly and professionally. It only made him even more intrigued by her.

Needless to say, Pepper was the only person in his life at the time that doesn’t even attempt to lick his ass or try to take him to bed. Their relationship was strictly professional, though Tony enjoyed teasing her while dropping hints literally everywhere. Though it was not until Afghanistan he realized that he wanted… no, he _needed_ … her in his life. It was not until Hammer Fiasco they tried to pursue romantic relationship.

No, the ‘romantic relationship’ was vague at best. Oh sure they did schmoopy couple thingies together, like going to this one spring carnival where she won a teddy bear for him (Tony was _not_ ashamed to admit that he was the girl of this relationship). She also endured the obligatory twelve-hours Star Trek marathon at weekends, the sciency-talks following right after, though mostly he did the talking and she did the listening while she worked on her StarkPad. She also accompanied him to the reboot-version Star Trek movie premiere and smoothed her way so he could meet and greet with the producer and the actors (he might or might not jumped through the ceiling at the chance of meeting with Leonard Nimoy). In return, he bought her this one dress that clashed horribly with her hair but she was willing to wear it anyway. And he definitely tried to throw her birthday parties (Jarvis was helping, how else he could remember the date?), or Christmas parties, or ‘I saved the world and lived to tell the tale’ parties. And _tried_ to make her breakfasts (with DUM-E accompanying with fire extinguisher at the ready, just in case).

But romantic? Well, Tony didn’t understand romantic until it slapped him on the face. He felt like he was not doing good enough for her. Sometimes he felt bad about it.

Then, Avengers happened. Chitauri Invasion happened, and Tony nearly died once again. Then, Loki happened, and they might or might not have sex in that narrow prison cell in barely-functioning SHIELD helicarrier. Tony didn’t even know what exactly happened, why he had sex with him, why he technically was fraternizing with the enemy, why he cheated on her. Of course, he liked to deny that it was not cheating if he was under Loki’s mind mojo. He conveniently forgot the facts that not only Loki’s mind mojo thing could not affect him, Loki was at the time shackled with magic-dampening shackles that Thor bought specially from Asgard.

Then, Loki was gone, and Tony was left alone on Pepper’s figurative front porch, traumatized and broken. Then, suddenly, Pepper turned into another Amy. She complained when Tony was working twenty-four seven in his lab. She complained about his suit _specifically_ that his hobby was too time consuming, that he was working near obsessively, that _Tony you need a professional help_. Then, Killian happened, and even after destroying his suits up till Mark-42, he didn’t even manage to win Pepper back, and she walked away from his life because ‘we better stay professional’, because she _couldn’t_ handle a broken and traumatized Tony Stark anymore.

Oddly, he didn’t feel bad about her leaving. She was unhappy and he wanted her happy. So he let her go. Besides, he got Bruce. The doctor might or might not stayed at the Stark Tower after the whole Chitauri invasion, and Tony might or might not showed on his front door holding a bottle of wine and a box of warm chicken burritos. They might or might not talked—or Tony vomited his feelings on Bruce’s metaphorical lap while Bruce whined that he was not _that kind of doctor Tony why couldn’t you understand that you are supposed to be a genius_.

With Bruce, Tony felt like he could have something… something that was lacking from his and Pepper’s relationship. It almost scared Tony just how much he trusted this guy that basically jumping into his life like a wrecking ball. A very green and mean wrecking ball. Bruce understood him when he talked about the possibility/impossibility of warp speed seven times faster than light speed. Hell, Bruce _cooed_ to his AI babies, especially DUM-E 2.0 whenever the reconstructed bot bringing a cup of steaming oolong tea on his visits at lab.

Only, like every good thing happened to Tony’s life, it didn’t mean to last.

Bruce walked away—he didn’t mean to walk away purposely to hurt Tony. That oversized teddy bear couldn’t even hurt a fly even if he wanted to. Tony was trying very hard not to show his hurt, not after being walked over by several significant others again and again by this point. Bruce was uncomfortable around him and he was fucking _tiptoeing_ ; and like with Pepper, he wanted Bruce happy, even if it meant to put distance between them. What he couldn’t accept was that Bruce walked away because he was afraid he would hurt Tony accidentally.

Tony was about to give up everything and reverting back to his crazy sex life pre-Pepper, when London happened and Thor arrived and debriefed _mercilessly_ by Fury. He wasn’t ready when his big man crush on Loki exploded right on his face. It happened too fast, too soon—he was grieving, gasping for breath, mourning, weeping, and then he was finding hope, working borderline-obsessively because _Loki was not dead you fucking morons_ , and he was _trying_ —God, he never tried _so_ hard in his life—to prove that Loki was not dead.

In the end, he was right, and Loki jumped off that bridge. It would mean another person, another good thing that could happen to his life, walk away from him, again. He was overwhelmed because he just _couldn’t let that happen_ , not anymore.

Tony followed.


End file.
